[QCrit] SANCTUARY, Adult Mystery, 85K, First Attempt
Laura knows her aunt Zoe is missing, even if no one else wants to admit it.
A phoneless hippy living on the road, Zoe pops up unexpectedly every few months… except the months have stretched to years, and Laura’s concern has turned to dread.
Laura’s summer holiday should have been simple – a temp job at the council, saving up enough to move out. But when she discovers something inexplicable from Zoe’s past in a field, she’s pulled onto a trail spiralling out from the euphoric chaos of the illegal rave scene.
Enlisting her new colleagues to help her find Zoe, Laura uncovers hippies building their own church, a witch on a riverboat, naked druids at a rave, and an enigmatic figure calling himself Barry Fantastic. It’s unclear whether Barry is a biophysicist, conman, or cult leader, but one thing is certain – he’s behind Zoe’s disappearance.
As they delve deeper into the sinister, psychedelic world of Barry and his Tribe of the Rainbow, Laura realises she must risk everything to find her aunt before she ends up as another of Barry’s victims. Zoe’s fate lies out on Dartmoor, inside a mysterious dome rising from earth studded with the ruins of stone circles.
SANCTUARY shares DNA with THE LIST OF SUSPICIOUS THINGS, a young female protagonist taking it upon herself to solve a case, as well as distinctly British comedic mysteries such as A PARTICULARLY NASTY CASE.
SANCTUARY is a story about a woman’s search for her tribe, and the communal music and fire we all lost when the stone circles crumbled.
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